Friday April 7- 25km (223.1km)
If one was to go by the guide book one would have expected an interesting day, walking through many important archaeological sites…in reality neither of us can think of anything memorable from the entire day, this of course may down to the fact that we are not up on our archaeology! In part the path was rerouted because of the revamping of the A1 so a section of the walk was along roads and through the road works (and yes archaeological digs!). The weather was fine so we remained in good spirits. I should relate tales of visiting important buildings and sites but the events that will remain with me are much less impressive I’m afraid! The first was our packed lunch; the list of packed lunch ingredients read as: sandwich, biscuit, piece of fruit, bottle of water and carrot – all presented in a paper bag. When I read this I presumed the carrot was in fact carrot cake and the word cake had been omitted in error, but no we did indeed have a big pile of carrots in our packed lunch..most disappointing! We stopped for our lunch in a fairly attractive spot; a bridge leading into a field to proceed through after lunch. As we started our lunch the cows were spread around the field but then Dan (still in James Heriot mode :() got up and approached the gate, which we had to go through…as if drawn by his animal attracting powers ALL the cows started to crowd round our only route into the field. Me, being the animal lover that I am, refused to try to slide past 30 cows so we had to take a diversion to avoid trampling by all the cows. I’m sure Dan could have sweet talked in cow language his way out of this predicament but I was off before he had a chance😜. The final memorable sight was when going through the hamlet of Colburn; a rather charming assortment of small farm houses and well kept gardens…but in their midst were three women in full Tibetan dress, listening to similar music on an iPad sitting at the hamlet’s bus stop…it was like something on a Monty Python sketch…completely incongruous.

We arrived in Danby Wiske and sat in the bar for a good half hour before anyone came, it bode badly for the accommodation and evening meal but all ended well. Tomorrow is the easiest day before the last three days, which will be more challenging.

A field of swans….

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